Re: [fluid-dev] License trouble for Debian

[Josh Green]

Hello David and Bernat,

On Sun, 2009-04-19 at 13:28 +0200, Bernat Arlandis i Mañó wrote:
> David Henningsson escrigué:
> >
> > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=524566
> >
> > To get back on topic, I'm not demanding that fluidsynth should be more
> > Debian-friendly in the future, but if we want, we should consider:
> >
> > 1) Removing the files in the sf2 directory. I don't understand why those
> > files are distributed with fluidsynth at all, and IMO they should be
> > removed.
> >
> > 2) Relicense the documentation under a DFSG-compatible license. (IMO:
> > This one is least important, as the documentation is available online
> > anyway.)
> >
> > 3) Add a proper license notice to doc/example.sf2 so we know who made
> > it, and under what terms we can use it.
> >
> > // David
> >
> >   
> You should post the issue url in your first message so we can have all 
> the information right from the start.
> 
> It's easy to fix for your package:
> - The FS repository doesn't need to be DFSG-compatible.
> - Josh could take away the non-compatible files from the source tarball 
> he's done since they're not needed in general distribution and they 
> might invalidate the LGPL license for the whole package.
> - In case he doesn't remove them, it's really easy for you to remove the 
> files from the source tarball for Debian. Ask Debian developers on how 
> to make others aware that you're changing the source tarball.
> 
> Asking your questions in a Debian developers forum first will help you 
> better solve your packaging doubts. They'll tell you when there's 
> something wrong with upstream that you have to ask fixing.
> 

I'm not particularly attached to VintageDreamsWaves-v2.sf2 and think
removing it is fine.  I'm not sure who originally added it to the
project and hadn't realized that it wasn't a more free license.  The
idea was probably to have something small for users to try out easily.
Perhaps some public domain replacement could be found at some point, but
it probably makes more sense just to have a separate package with some
decent GM SoundFont and a few other small ones.  I'll remove the sf2
folder for now.

Not sure where example.sf2 came from either, but it seems to be
referenced by the example.c source code, so my guess is that it was
Peter Hanappe who created that file and the example.sf2.  Looking at it,
its simply a single preset ("El Cheapo Organ") ripped from
VintageDreamsWaves-v2.sf2, which apparently breaks the license of that
SoundFont!  Removing.  I don't think it necessarily detracts from the
usefulness of example.c.

Most of the documentation is severely outdated (refers to FluidSynth as
Iiwusynth, etc).

- doc/FluidSynth-LADSPA.pdf - Markus Nentwig wrote this, it could come
in handy when fixing/improving the LADSPA code.  He is available if we
want to ask him if we can put a DFSG compatible license on it.

- doc/fluidsynth-v10-devdoc.xml seems to be Peter Hanappe's work. I can
ask him about this one.

- doc/midi_time.txt is just some memo of Peter Hanappe's, which could
probably just be deleted without anyone noticing.

- doc/xtrafluid.txt looks outdated.  Can Antoine Schmitt comment on
whether it is useful?  If it is useful, do you know who wrote it?


Does that cover everything?  Any suggestion on what licenses are most
appropriate for documentation?

Cheers!
        Josh